“Don’t!” cried Fionn, waking with a start. His heart pounded as he tried to recognise his surroundings. He was in the neat and tidy room of Hunter’s Den. He closed his eyes.
A dream. Just a dream but it seemed so….
Different? suggested Sir Bearach. I saw it too. I’ve seen your dreams before, lad, and they are usually formless and abstract, only producing an occasional recognisable scene. But this. This was different….
I am no stranger to strange dreams, replied Fionn, thinking of the vision the Lady had shown him, of Nessa. Of his birth. Was this from Her too?
He looked out a nearby window. It was morning, that much was clear, but its hour was less so. The snow continued to fall upon the settlement of Hunter’s Den, gently smothering the landscape.
He made his way downstairs, where Padraig was preparing a breakfast, of sorts. He fried sausages and bacon on a pan, and boiled eggs in water, without their shells.
“Still no bread,” he said, as Fionn sat with the others. Nicole sat beside Farris, but neither seemed to acknowledge Fionn. Aislinn sat on the opposite side, drinking deeply from a thick mug of broth.
“That’s okay,” said Fionn. “We should take as much as we can from here. We won’t have much comfort as we cross the Godspine.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Padraig said, running to the table with a pan of fried tomato slices. He forked one onto each plate. “I travelled through here before, and the road from Hunter’s Den to Ardh Sidhe is an easy one to follow.”
He sat down before his own plate and took a bite from a strip of bacon. He gestured towards Aislinn. “And when the road emerges, we see your namesake lake first, and gods above and below, it is a wonderful sight to behold.”
“We went there once,” said Aislinn with a smile. “Bearach and I were kids, we tried to swim the length of it, and almost drowned.” She turned to look westwards, through a window on the far side of the bar, frosted fingers grasping at the edges of its glass. “It’s probably frozen over now.”
Fionn looked inwards, focusing his attention on Bearach, but the old knight said nothing. Fionn had asked him many times now to communicate with Aislinn. But given how adamant Bearach had been the last time Fionn asked, he thought it better to not ask any more.
A shame, he thought, not expecting a response.
Still, he was disappointed when none came.
After breakfast, they gathered their things. Nicole busied herself altering some old potato sacks with some leather straps she found while raiding the cloakroom. It seemed many people had left here in such a hurry when the undead came, they never thought to put their coats on. When Fionn stepped outside into the frigid air, Aislinn had fastened additional sacks onto the elk mounts, which Farris promptly filled with food from the pantry.
“It’s a wonder they can carry all this,” said Fionn, considering the mass of both Simians, dressed head to foot in thick armour.
“They can handle more with less,” Nicole said, pulling a square helm over her head, covering her entire face. “They’re made of far stronger stuff than your horses,” she added, in a muffled voice.
Padraig and Aislinn came out behind them. Both were smiling in a very specific way that Fionn hadn’t seen in a very long time. He looked at them, expectantly, ready to hear a shared joke, but Padraig’s face immediately went straight as he tended to his horse.
As they left the settlement, a cold wind blew in from the north. The path that took them from Hunter’s Den was similar to the one that took them to it. For a time, they moved ahead at an accelerated pace, with hooves crunching into the snow. The forest was strangely silent here, with no sign of life bar the frozen brushes and trees that slowly passed as they went. Padraig led the way, confident as he was that he could follow the paths through the Godspine and out into the Midlands. Aislinn rode beside him, with Farris and Nicole lingering behind. Abruptly, Fionn felt very lonely, the only one taking the centre space of their advancing column.
Eventually, they came to a crossroads. Or at least Padraig identified it as such. To Fionn’s eyes, the path they were on continued northwards only.
“Here,” said Padraig, pointing towards the ground where a lone, wooden stake stood. “This marks the junction in our route. This westward path will take us through the mountains."
“This path?” asked Farris, riding up to take a closer look. “Looks more like a game trail than a path.”
“No matter what you call it,” said Padraig. “We are to take it westwards until we reach Ardh Sidhe.”
Fionn considered the path himself. Indeed, the freshly fallen snow obscured the ground beneath, but there certainly was a parting of the grass adjacent to the stake, and it wound through the trees until it disappeared into distant hills obscured by mist to the west.
“The stake,” said Nicole, nodding towards it. “Was it a sign of some sort before?”
“Yes,” said Padraig.
Fionn narrowed his eyes, then looked to the two Simians. They too didn’t seem happy with Padraig’s response, but what other choice did they have?
Why not continue down the main path? asked Sir Bearach. It may cost us more time to circle around the mountains, but it’s better than being lost.
No, replied Fionn. Every hour we spend dithering and deciding what to do next is an hour Morrígan steps ahead of us. We need to reach Mount Selyth before she does.
I don’t know, Fionn, replied the knight. If she wants to get there before we do, she surely would have done so with ease already.
Fionn didn’t reply. He hadn’t considered that until now. And considering it now didn’t bring him much joy.
He urged his mount towards the captain. “Have you taken this path before, Padraig?”
“I have,” he replied. “Though I admit it was a long time ago. Without the snowfall, it would be clear that this stake once marked a significant junction in this road. This much, I am sure of.”
There was no strong objection to this, or perhaps none could think of any. Nonetheless, the company reluctantly steered their mounts westwards, and stepped off the main road. They trudged slowly through this new path. Fionn often had to stoop his head low to avoid being brushed by snow-covered branches as he went. To his relief, there certainly was a path of some sort beneath the hooves of his horse, even if he couldn’t see it under the snow and the ice.
Soon, the trees grew thinner, and the path sloped upwards. The grassy ground surrounding them slowly rose above to give way to steep, rocky foothills. The snowfall gradually grew thicker too, until Fionn had to squint through the sleet to see through it.
All conversation among the party stopped now, as their focused remained only on the path ahead of them. Padraig led the way still, though it was only now that Fionn realised how much they had truly staked in the man’s confidence.
They went on like this for some time; a time that felt to Fionn far longer than the few hours that elapsed. The path continued to slope upwards, until it began to wind around tall peaks of mountains. Fionn did not take in much of the scenery as he went, keeping his jaw clenched firmly shut, and his eyes focused only on the road before him. The cold fangs of the howling wind bit into his face, constantly, with each step. A time to rest was warranted, but Fionn dared not suggest one, for the faster they made it through these wretched hills, the better.
At times, Padraig would pause and survey the area, then direct the company to move forward again. Given the conditions in which they presently travelled, Fionn felt he was in no position to question the captain’s navigation skills. On the other hand, over the screeches of the billowing winds, Fionn heard the Simians behind him. One of them, or perhaps both, was expressing concern with Padraig’s ability.
Still, Fionn dared not say a word.
Onwards they went for some hours, until Fionn reckoned they had gone well past noon. He periodically looked upwards, hoping to gauge the time of day. With the sky so overcast, it was difficult to distinguish between afternoon and dusk.
